Author: Rattle

October 29, 2024

“Reverie Work Ahead” by ZeidPosted by

Have you ever eaten breakfast here before? by Barbara Gordon, oil painting for two construction barrels leaning toward each other as if in conversation in an empty parking lot

Image: “Have you ever eaten breakfast here before?” by Barbara Gordon. “Reverie Work Ahead” was written by Zeid for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2024, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

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Zeid

REVERIE WORK AHEAD

two traffic barrels wonder if they should crack the street / split the asphalt like an egg / see what spills out. or if they should imagine themselves as spiderwebs / snaring a city’s descending ashes / clung tightly to circular frames. one barrel whispers to the other / the reply is a stuttered hymn / a plastic rasp. they are the pulse of rust and rain / flickering stripes / smoke-glint on iron / ghosts of a steely and dust-bitten world. they lean closer / barricade lights nearly touching / soft pulses under blue sky. they whisper of silver platters and things they cannot eat / oil-slick dreams sliding between orange bands. a yellow caution tape snake slithers by / coiling in a wind’s clutch / curling toward and away from the barrels. they wait for the night crew / who’ll roll them back to their stations / with street tremors below weighted bases. for now / they press into each other’s shadows / the city’s hum beyond the frame / the asphalt cooling as the day exhales. still / the question hovers like fog above street / should they crack the ground beneath them / or let it hold / fixed / silent / as / fault / or as choice?
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
September 2024, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “This image, on its own, is a poem, the way the artist breathes humanity into commonplace objects and winks deftly at a more complex narrative. ‘Reverie Work Ahead’ puts words to that narrative, imagining the untold story of two traffic barrels. It takes a skilled writer to achieve this without veering into absurdity, and Zeid pulls it off impressively. Inspired phrases like ‘ghosts of a steely and dust-bitten world’ and ‘coiling in a wind’s clutch’ captivate and give dimension to the world the poet creates. The last line, in the form of a question, feels profound and consequential, and reminds the reader that great poets and artists can create the deepest meaning out of the most ordinary subjects.”

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October 28, 2024

“Einstein Washes the Dishes” by Michael R.J. RothPosted by

Michael R.J. Roth

EINSTEIN WASHES THE DISHES

Einstein washes the dishes
He knew he could not change the world
So he tried to change the universe
Knowing it would be absurd
But then again, it could’ve been worse
It didn’t measure up to his plans
And Einstein washes the dishes
Not knowing where he stands
 
Einstein washes the dishes
From morning till mid-afternoon
He suddenly finds he has time on his hands
On the mystical side of the moon
Everyone blames him for putting
Black holes where stars used to shine
So Einstein washes the dishes
Leaving his future behind
 
Einstein washes the dishes
Rinsing the time off his hands
When he thought that souls were fictitious
Like Zen monks would say in Japan
Ashes from Auschwitz float by like wishes
That something human remains
Einstein washes the dishes
But he cannot remove all the stains
 
That trick with the loaves and the fishes
Was a thing he could not comprehend
He thinks that he might know the answer
The truth is that it just depends
He’d change the world for a song
If it changed the world
But he wonders how it will end
So Einstein washes the dishes
And he does it again and again
 

—from Rattle #85, Fall 2024
Tribute to Musicians

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Michael R.J. Roth: “I started as a poet, relishing the freedom it provided for the voice of the soul, free of constraints. I later started writing songs, finding ways to fit words into the structures created by music and convention. Of course, in songwriting as in poetry, the conventions have been evolving and increasingly liberating. The more I wrote, the more I found the words demanded music, and increasingly worked from the lyric to shaping the music around it. There are dimensions that poetry has that cannot be translated into song, but music provides dimensions the written or spoken word alone cannot achieve. We see those dimensional differences between photography and painting, for example, or black-and-white versus color. We see it in plays versus cinema, and may wonder what it would be like if architecture could sing or sculpture could dance. I find that songwriting provides an element of emotion and drama that I can’t supply with words alone. There is also the added factor of the audience. Songs need to convey their meaning rather urgently, and the need to communicate clearly in a short time adds some discipline that I like. I still write poetry, but I have been writing and performing songs for more than a half century, and still love the flirtation between words and music.” (web)

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October 27, 2024

“A Poet’s Response to an Actor’s Assessment of a Politician’s Intelligence …” by Bob HicokPosted by

Bob Hicok

A POET’S RESPONSE TO AN ACTOR’S ASSESSMENT OF A POLITICIAN’S INTELLIGENCE, UNDERTAKEN IN THE SPIRIT OF THE BELIEF THAT WE’RE ALL BOZOS ON THIS BUS

I’m dumber than a Phillips head screwdriver
or on-ramp or speculum or rain and every diacritical
you can think of, critically or not, can do something
I can’t, I believe in the wisdom of matter,
that every form it takes is a species of intelligence,
an embodiment of knowledge, so to call
a candidate for president as dumb as a fencepost
or as dumb as a combover or as dumb
as a three-legged stool on the side of the road
looking as if it wants to cry, is like chiding the ocean
because it does a shitty Watusi or making fun of a puppy
who barks at its own hiccups, there’s a video of this,
probably more than one, and yes it’s kind of stupid
but that puppy could sniff out cancer or cocaine
better than you, and wag more fulsomely and literally
than you, and a fence post does an honest day’s work
every day of its life if given the chance, so if you must try
to insult someone running for president,
it’s better to call them as dumb as someone
who thinks calling someone dumb is still in style
after third grade, and what if that person is rubber
and you are glue, what then, dumbass, are we to make
of democracy in 2024, if insults are the currency
of debate, if love isn’t at the core of the endeavor,
love of our shared stupidity, cupidity, humidity,
our common state of befuddlement
over where this is all headed
and how best to get where we don’t know
we’re going, we need a president
who isn’t afraid to shrug, who gets
that ten people putting ten heads together
still leaves us with what experts refer to
as half a brain, please, god, enough
of the solo swagger, the hero pose,
I want a president who puts the everyone
in team, who believes that people
are our best chance to be human,
to maybe, possibly, one day
figure out what that even means.
 

—from Poets Respond

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Bob Hicok: “This is a poet’s response to an actor’s assessment of a politician’s intelligence.”

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October 26, 2024

“Owl’s Kahoot” by Djuna WillsPosted by

Djuna Wills (age 10)

OWL’S KAHOOT

Outside my window at night I hear sounds.
Sounds of animals having fun. As my eyelids
were shutting I heard a “Who Who”
I was being funny I said “Me” and the owl said “You”
In the morning I woke up only to hear something at the door
I said “Who” it said “Who” I said “Me” and it said “You”
I opened the door and the owl flew in. I followed him upstairs then stopped
before a light. When the light was gone the owl was too.
 

—from 2024 Rattle Young Poets Anthology

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Why do you like to write poetry?

Djuna Wills: “I like to write poetry because it’s entertaining, and it’s fun to write things that you think about.”

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October 25, 2024

“On an 1894 Preacher’s Traveling Reed Organ” by Christine PotterPosted by

Christine Potter

ON AN 1894 PREACHER’S TRAVELING REED ORGAN

It probably survived by being broken, never
wired-up for someone’s psychedelic band
in the ’60s, not interesting to children who’d
have abused it casually as they do aged dogs
 
they are told not to bother. Shaped like a tiny
chapel itself: black wood, tarnished gilt, legs
meant to fold under so it could be carried.
Weak and tired as any of us are when love
 
surprises us and we find ourselves needed
once again. My husband has repaired it and
playing it is like riding your first bicycle uphill
on a warm day full of white-flowering trees,
 
or maybe like your grandmother’s voice, not
when she was scolding you but when she
sang the alleluias from “The Strife Is O’er,”
and freed your hair from the braids you hated
 
so she could brush it for you. See? It’s just the
two of you in your bedroom, after supper, and
the shades are pulled down against the length
of the light. She stands behind you, lost in song.
 

—from Rattle #85, Fall 2024
Tribute to Musicians

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Christine Potter: “Churches keep a lot of musicians going, and not just spiritually: they pay them. A church gig, if you can face Sunday (or in temples, Saturday) morning, is an excellent thing. A church musician was the last thing I thought I’d ever end up being, but then I married an organist/choir director who realized that all those folk-rock ambitions I had in the ’70s weren’t for naught. They could be useful if he needed a soprano, someone to figure out how to play the tower chimes at a job we worked together in the Bronx, someone to play dulcimer with the children’s choir … all I needed was some vocal training. So he provided it. After that we were ‘two for the price of one.’ I guess I went pro at our first sushi lunch (a tradition of ours) after picking up the envelope after a funeral. That sounds ghoulish—and it isn’t. Church music taught me to laugh and cry at the same time. I think that’s the first thing a poet needs to know.” (web)

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October 24, 2024

“Tanka [construction cones]” by Cindy GuenthermanPosted by

Have you ever eaten breakfast here before? by Barbara Gordon, oil painting for two construction barrels leaning toward each other as if in conversation in an empty parking lot

Image: “Have you ever eaten breakfast here before?” by Barbara Gordon. “[construction cones]” was written by Cindy Guentherman for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

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Cindy Guentherman

TANKA

construction cones
tilted a little
toward each other—
how we lean forward
to say what matters
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
September 2024, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Barbara Gordon: “It’s amazing how all of the poets constructed so many different stories about my painting. I’m down to these two. This tanks really captures the essence of the painting, I think: the feeling of the two barrels leaning over to talk: a little quirky, a little funny, a little tragic. The barrels and cones talking to each other, telling little stories.”

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October 23, 2024

“Petite Chanson de Démence” by Richard NewmanPosted by

Richard Newman

PETITE CHANSON DE DÉMENCE

My father asks if Genji’s a girl or boy
over and over over family dinner.
It’s not his fault. He doesn’t mean to annoy
us when he asks if Genji’s a girl or boy.
He has no past, just stray moments of joy.
His face, his voice, his soul have all grown thinner,
worn down asking if Genji’s a girl or boy
over and over over family dinner.
 

—from Rattle #85, Fall 2024
Tribute to Musicians

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Richard Newman: “After mowing lawns, my first job was playing upright bass for our civic theater orchestra. My first show was a Cole Porter review, a great way to learn how to stitch words and music together. Around that same time, my own band was playing in bars. I was 16, and we were paid the door, a pizza, and as much beer as we could drink. I’ve been a professional musician and songwriter since then, playing in orchestras and bands, though the last decade I’ve travelled the world and rarely play with others. The last songs I’ve written were for my young son, and my last ASCAP royalties deposit barely paid for an iced latte in 2017 when I was in the Marshall Islands. Nonetheless, I’m still drawn to song forms in poetry, especially sonnets (little songs), villanelles (country peasant songs), and triolets (clover leaf songs). Even when I don’t take on a traditional form, I often work in meter. Rarely do I mix the writing process in poetry and songwriting. One can get away with lines in a song that look banal on the naked page, but it works the other way, too. Lines of poetry often sound ridiculous sung out loud. I’m equally drawn to story and song. Even a triolet for me contains a narrative impulse. Singing our stories is the best of both worlds.”

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